


A John McClane Christmas

by persnickett



Series: Bad Habits Die Hard [8]
Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-25
Updated: 2011-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 02:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look kid, enough alright? For the last time, I don’t hate Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A John McClane Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This is the conclusion to my Bad Habits Die Hard series and, hmm, warnings...semi-graphic man-sex, Pulaski’s back, shifting POV and...well, there’s 10 000 words.

  
   
 _Matthew Farrell liked Christmas a lot._  
 _But John McClane, who slept next to Matt Farrell, DID NOT._  
 _John hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season._  
 _And Matthew Farrell was determined to find out the reason._  
   
It was a seriously good thing Matt was good with numbers, because -- things blowing up and people pointing guns at him aside -- there was no way he could have ever cut it as a detective.  
   
McClane always said rule number one in the playbook is knowing the right questions to ask.  
   
“It’s the Nakatomi thing isn’t it?”  
   
And a little subtlety probably never hurt either. Shit.  
   
“What?” John turned his head away from the television to look at Matt, where he was sitting next to him on the couch. As a general rule, they didn’t talk when the game was on, but Matt had been waiting for the commercial break so he thought it was safe.  
   
“The Nakatomi thing. The hostage-taking you stopped all the way back in-  ”  
   
“I know that, I _did_ it. Is _what_ the Nakatomi thing?”  
   
“The reason. It’s the reason you hate Christmas, isn’t it?”  
   
“ _What_ _?_ ”  
   
Gunshots were really loud and everything, and sure, John had probably had his share of them go off way too close to his eardrums to be healthy. But still, Matt was pretty sure he wasn’t suddenly losing his hearing. He sighed and repeated himself anyway.  
   
“It’s the reason you hate- ”   
   
“I heard you, kid, I heard. Jesus. I meant what the hell are you talking about, I don’t hate Christmas.”  
   
“People really shouldn’t lie to me you know, I’m dating a cop. I can tell when they’re lying.”  
   
John cocked his head and looked at him sardonically. Matt waited for the left eyebrow to rise in derisive silence. There it went.  
   
See now, John was really good at this. The detective stuff. This look used to scare the shit out of Matt – even if these days it just kind of made him have to fight back a smile.  
   
Matt wasn’t sure, but he could guess that rule number two in the playbook was not to say anything at all. Wait long enough and the perp will crack. They’ll be so overcome with the tension they’ll tell you anything you want to know just to break the unbearable silence. That part of it still worked on Matt. Every time.  
   
“Okay I bet you didn’t know this,” he babbled, just to prove it. “But I’ve been secretly building an Enigma machine to crack your fiendish eyebrow code. See that? Right there? Left brow-raise, approximately 40%. Incline 20 degrees. That means…” Matt paused for dramatic effect, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You do not deign to dignify my quip with a verbal response. Am I right?”  
   
John _didn’t_ respond, not exactly, but the right eyebrow crept upward to join its mate.  
   
“Ah! Full brow-raise. Confirmation. That’s okay. It wasn’t one of my best. Not A-game material at all. B-list, tops.”  
   
“We done?” John asked, finally.  
   
Matt let loose with the grin he’d been biting down on. Because: Nope.  
   
“Seriously, man, if you don’t hate Christmas then why is this such a big deal? I just think we should get one.”  
   
“We have one,” John said curtly, nodding in the general direction of the hallway and then turning his gaze back to the television.  
   
“That thing? That thing on the front hall table? That is not a Christmas tree, John. Not unless you’re three apples high.”  
   
Nothing. John didn’t even toss him a look of frustration.  
   
“Three apples?” Matt prompted. “Like _The Smurfs_? Wow, did you like, _never_ watch TV with your kids? I’ll bet you made three-year-old Lucy watch the game with you. She learned the alphabet off the players’ jerseys didn’t she?” Matt leaned forward and swiped his cell off the coffee table. “I have her number right here. I can find out.“  
   
“There’s gonna be nobody but us around here to even see a tree, Matthew.”  
   
 _Annoy the suspect with inane chatter until they start talking, just to shut you up_. Matt was pretty sure they didn’t have _that_ in the super-cop handbook.  
   
“You’re not gonna want to put out milk and cookies too, are ya kid?” John went on. “Because if you are I’m afraid I got some bad news for ya...”  
   
“John McClane, and he’s here all week ladies and gents,” Matt announced to an imaginary, yet adoring, audience. “Don’t forget to tip your waitress.”  
   
John grabbed the remote and muted the television. Obviously he was about to say something serious. Matt would have to figure out what it was about his tone just now that had made John go there.  
   
“I’m just surprised, is all. Didn’t expect you to be so gung-ho about the holidays.”  
   
Oh. That. Matt’s…family stuff.  
   
“I know. Weird, huh? It’s cheesy and manipulative and completely consumerist, but I just kind of love Christmas. The massive and unnecessary surplus of sugary junk food, the tens of millions of little twinkle lights burning non-renewable resources.”  
   
John was watching him carefully now, and Matt turned toward him and tucked his legs up under himself. He wasn’t squirming under the scrutiny, he was just…getting comfortable. So they could…talk.  
   
“I think maybe it’s just because, well, usually when school let out my mother would ship me off to spend the whole Christmas break with my grandpa. I guess…most of my best memories are from around this time of year.” Matt shrugged, trying for nonchalant and probably just ending up with jerky and uncomfortable. “And it’s not _officially_ Christmas until you have a tree.”  
   
John reached forward and smoothed some of Matt’s hair back from where it was apparently covering his face on instinct. Okay so maybe he was squirming just a little.  
   
Damn, John really _was_ good at this detective stuff.  
   
“Okay,” he was saying, one big, warm hand cupping the side of Matt’s face.  
   
“Okay?” Matt repeated, cautiously. “Does that mean like, _okay_ , okay? Or just, like, ‘okay’? Because I’m…”  
   
Matt never got to finish his question, but John was tipping Matt’s chin up and leaning forward for a kiss, so he figured he had his answer.  
   
It wasn’t their usual. John was gentler than normal, brushing their lips together soft and slow. It was nice, but Matt liked the other way too. Urgent and hot and…yeah. But this was nice. Very nice.  
   
“You know this is blackmail, doncha?” John asked, in a slow, molten-sounding tone when he stopped.  
   
Matt just smiled into their next kiss, which sure enough, was a little firmer this time. Maybe he wouldn’t have made such a terrible detective at all.  
 

 **  
~o~ **

John looked around and tried to remember how he’d gotten roped into this. He’d more or less sworn never to come back here again. The trees dangling from the ceiling put him in mind of a case he worked in 2001 -- tracking a delivery van to a meat locker that turns out to be packed to the gills with lazily swinging mob corpses isn’t something a guy forgets too fast.

 

He blew on his hands impatiently. This place wasn’t any warmer, either.

 

Matt popped in and out of view through the eerie severed forest, each time waving his mitten-clad hands excitedly and calling for John to follow him to the perfect tree. Every time he caught up to the kid though, Matt was already disappearing again to go and examine another, even more perfect, specimen.

 

John looked at the evergreen branches swaying slowly in front of his face and thought back to the last time he’d bought a tree here.

 

> John blinked a couple times and looked away from the Christmas tree. Didn’t know why he’d even bothered to decorate it. Those lights were a grade A pain in the ass. 
> 
>  
> 
> There were no gifts to put under it either. He’d mailed them off to California days ago when Holly had called to tell him about the change of plans. 
> 
>  
> 
> John should have been ready for this shit by now. There was just something about his luck this time of year. If his mother-in-law was going to have a stroke, of course this would be when it would hit her. And it was natural for the kids to want to spend what could be their Grammy’s last Christmas close by. 
> 
>  
> 
> He felt like a prize asshole for being this moody -- hell, mopey even -- about it, but just seemed like no matter what John did, no matter how fuckin’ hard he tried, there was _always_ a change of plans. Like the one he was hearing about right now.
> 
>  
> 
> “Australia,” John repeated into the phone. Australia. John would need an atlas to be sure, but he could guess there wasn’t a place in the world a kid could get, that was further away from his folks back in the good old U S of A, than Australia. “That’s a hell of a trip, Chief. What happened, you got a girl out there?” 
> 
>  
> 
> There was a beat’s silence and then a muffled noise that might have been a snort.
> 
>  
> 
> “Typical.” Jack sounded suddenly and, for all that John could figure out, irrationally angry. But that seemed to be happening a lot these days. 
> 
>  
> 
> John wasn’t crazy about the new attitude his boy seemed to be developing, but this was Christmas, and things had to be tense enough over there already. He tried to keep his tone neutral. 
> 
>  
> 
> “Typical. What’s typical?”
> 
>  
> 
> “You. And your macho bullshit. No, John, I’m not doing this for a _girl_.”
> 
>  
> 
>   
> “No _, Dad,”_ John corrected his youngest. “And watch that language when you talk to your old man, huh?”   
> 
> 
>  
> 
> “Did it ever occur to you, DAD, that I might be doing this because I got a full scholarship? That maybe I _applied_ for it? You know what most parents are when their kids call to tell them they got into an International College Program? Proud!”
> 
>  
> 
> “What? I’m pr-“
> 
>  
> 
> “You know what else, before you ask? No, dad, I never did make the football team. I haven’t even tried out since sophomore year! I bet you don’t even know that, do you? You don’t know anything about my life. We haven’t talked in three months, _dad_.”
> 
>  
> 
> Well, fuck. A shit load more convincing than it rightfully should take to get his own kid to call him ‘dad’ and now John just wished he would stop.  
> 
>  
> 
> “I just told you I made it into one of the best Colleges _globally_ in my top field of study, and what do you want to talk about?” 
> 
>  
> 
> “Hey, hey, slow down kiddo, I didn’t – “
> 
>  
> 
> “How many _chicks_ I’ve scored with! Forget it. I can’t do this any more. I’m sorry I can’t be a perfect carbon copy of you, and go to school right next door in Jersey, okay?” 
> 
>  
> 
> There was the sound of commotion into the phone, like a rustle of clothing being tugged in a silent scuffle. John could probably stop wondering whether Lucy was in the room with him. 
> 
>  
> 
> “But I’m sure as hell not sorry I’m not YOU,” his son went on. If I _wanted_ to be a backward, blue-collar, card-carrying conservative Neanderthal with control issues, I’d enter the fucking academy.”
> 
>  
> 
> Merry fuckin’ Christmas. John unclenched his left hand, where his fingers had curled into the palm tight enough to whiten his knuckles and leave little half-moons from his fingernails. He breathed.
> 
>  
> 
> “…Nobody’s saying you have to be a cop, Junior.” In fact, God fucking forbid. 
> 
>  
> 
> “Oh my God,” came the reply. “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you. It’s _Jack!!_ ”
> 
>  
> 
> John knew from experience that the phones his kids used these days didn’t make that satisfying, resounding click sound when they hung up on him, but it didn’t stop him from saying “Chief?” and “Junior?” and “Jack, dammit!” into the receiver before he slammed the phone into the handset himself.
> 
>  
> 
> John went back to staring at the Christmas tree. He’d forgotten to turn the fucking lights on.

 

 **  
~o~ **

   
Matt wrinkled his nose and sipped delicately from his glass.  
   
“Ugh. It’s Dulles, isn’t it?”  
   
His complete-lack-of-tact approach had worked before. Why mess with a winning strategy?  
   
Unfortunately, this time John seemed pretty happy to bulldoze right over Matt’s masterfully planned out line of questioning.  
   
“If you don’t like that shit, why are you still drinking it?” John made a growling sound and shook out the string of Christmas tree lights he looked like he was preparing to go three rounds with.  
   
Matt took another sip, and then gave a full body shudder.  
   
“Because. It’s a tradition,” he said, totally reasonably. “It’s not officially Christmas until somebody drinks eggnog and _you_ won’t step up.” He put down his glass and picked up the needle and thread for the popcorn strings he was working on. Read: mostly playing keep-away with Bullitt and the bowl of popcorn.  “It’s Dulles, right? The airport? When Holly’s plane- “  
   
“Matt. I was there. I remember. Alright?”  
   
Matt moved the bowl of popcorn from the coffee table to the couch cushion, and hopefully out of dog-snout range.  
   
“You couldn’t have stopped it you know, that plane going down…you did everything-“  
   
John put up a silencing hand. He could only spare one. The lights seemed to be trying to get him in a figure-four.  
   
“I’ve already had enough head-shrinking at the Department on the subject to make me nuts, okay? So thanks, but I’m good here. It’s not Dulles.”  
   
“’It’s not Dulles’, means it’s something. You said ‘it’, there’s an _it_. I knew it. Tell me the ‘it.’”  
   
Score. Matt _totally_ could have been a detective.  
    
“Enough with the ‘it’. _I do not hate Christmas_ , alright?” John made a forceful suggestion that the lights commit a certain sexual act that even Matt refused to try. And he liked to think he was pretty open minded.  
   
“Really? This is you _not_ hating things? I’d hate to be the guy you do hate then, because if you like all this shit...”  
   
John saved Matt the trouble of finishing that sentence by letting out another string of curses that was longer than the string of lights he was wrestling with. It had somehow managed to wrap itself around Bullitt’s obliviously wagging tail.  
The whole thing was actually kind of impressive.  
   
“I don’t hate Christmas, just these _lights_ ,” John said again.  
   
Actually there were a few more words in there Matt didn’t care to repeat. He wasn’t even sure he had the vocabulary to do it with. And regardless of whether or not Christmas tree lights could actually _have_ a mother, he was pretty sure it wasn’t fair to drag her into it.  
   
Matt moved the bowl back to the coffee table, and got up to help disentangle their over-stimulated dog.  
   
Of course, by the time he’d accomplished that, John had managed to wrap the lights around his own ankle at least twice, and the bowl of popcorn was suddenly and mysteriously empty. Bullitt looked up at Matt and licked his chops gratefully.  
   
Yeah, Matt was done. He threw up his hands and got the hell out of the room. He had to go make some more fucking popcorn now, anyway.  
 

 **  
~o~ **

   
It had only taken him an hour and fifteen minutes, but John got the damn lights on the motherfucking tree.  
   
“Awesome.”  
   
Matt came in from the hallway. He was holding a rather large glass of eggnog in one hand and clutching a fresh bowl of popcorn in the other. Bullitt was on his heels, with a spellbound gaze fixed firmly on the bowl.  
   
“This calls for a celebration,” Matt said, holding the glass out for John to take. John looked at him.  
   
“What? What is that? Right brow-raise. Folded arms. You want me to beg? This is me begging. Please, please, _please_ just drink some of this God-awful shit. I bought two whole fucking cartons of it.”  
   
“If you’re thinking of taking up sales, don’t quit your day job, kid.”  
   
“You know,” Matt said, thoughtfully. “This stuff has like 1000 calories per glass. There’s enough energy in here for a _lot_ of mistletoe-related holiday cheer.”  
   
John took the glass, and added “bribery” to his mental tally of the kid’s list of crimes for the season. They’d have to work out a suitable punishment after the eggnog.  
   
John took a sip of his drink and admired his handiwork on the tree. He savoured the creamy flavour, the aromatic overtones of allspice and nutmeg -- not to mention the healthy dose of rum Matt added, God bless him. It wasn’t that John didn’t care for the stuff, he was known to indulge at Christmas all the time.  
   
It was just that the last time hadn’t been so pretty.  
 

> John had called back to try and smooth things over with Jack after a few minutes, but some guy answered the phone. Some guy named Mark. Told him Holly was upstairs with Jack and she’d call him once they got him to calm down.
> 
>  
> 
> By the time she did, he’d probably had a bit too much time to get sore, and maybe even a little belligerent, about it.
> 
>  
> 
> “I didn’t tell you about Mark because it’s still new,” Holly sighed, when he asked about it. “Nobody’s trying to keep you in the dark, John. If something serious starts happening, you’ll know.”
> 
>  
> 
> “He’s in our house, with my kids on Christmas. Sounds pretty serious to me, Hol.” 
> 
>  
> 
> Our house. Fuck. It hadn’t been ‘their house’ for seven years. 
> 
>  
> 
> “John.” John knew this tone. Soft, but definitely not sweet. Firm. This was Holly’s ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed’ tone. “Have you been drinking?”
> 
>  
> 
> He considered lying, but what the fuck was the point, anyway?
> 
>  
> 
> “M’alright. Just eggnog,” he said, truthfully. He was pretty sure it was no more slurred than his usual Brooklyn drawl. John scrubbed a hand over his face, and tried to think steadying thoughts.
> 
>  
> 
> Holly was quiet for a second before she responded. He could picture her, standing there in the sunny terra cotta kitchen, looking down at her hand resting on the counter. Holly stopped wearing her ring years ago, John knew. He’d finally taken his off last year. 
> 
>  
> 
> “Just…maybe don’t call the kids back until you’ve had a little more time between eggnogs, okay?”
> 
>  
> 
> John nodded in resignation. Then he remembered. “Yeah,” he said into the phone. “Yeah.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Merry Christmas, John.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Sure,” he said. And then, even though he couldn’t be certain Holly was still on the line, “Merry Christmas, Hol.”
> 
>  
> 
> John drained his glass and got up to turn the tree lights off. That was the last of the eggnog but there was still half a bottle of rum.
> 
>  

 **  
~o~ **

Rule number three in the playbook should probably be something like ‘approaching your quarry in a comfortable environment can increase cooperation’. Or, if your quarry is John McClane, just let him get in the door before you bombard him with questions in the hallway.  
   
John had his coat off, but his shoulder holster was still on. He had that sort of worn-down look that said he’d had the kind of day you didn’t ask about. But it was late, and Lucy was coming into town day after tomorrow, and if Matt wanted her to bring in groceries for Christmas dinner, well, he had to know now.  
   
Of course, the conversation just ended up in the same place as always.  
   
“Look kid, enough alright? For the last time, I don’t hate Christmas.”  
   
“Okay. You said that before, and I believe you, I do,” Matt said, hands up in the air to show he wasn’t gunning for an argument. “But then, John, seriously, help me out here. Why is it every time it comes up I sense a definite…resistance? And you know resistance is futile.”  
   
Okay, at least McClane seemed to get that one. His eyes flicked to Matt’s own and softened a little around the edges like they might start to crinkle any second.  
   
“It is,” Matt went on, coaxing John’s coat out of his hand and hanging it on one of the hooks on the wall next to them. “I’m patient. No, okay so I’m not always -- I’m _persistent_ , okay? Persistent is the word I was looking for. If you…just…oh hell John, can you just tell me what’s going on with you?”  
   
John let his big shoulders slump a little, and let a lot of air out through his nose in a kind of heavy sighing thing he did when Matt had him cornered and he was forced into being cooperative.  
   
“Listen, I don’t _hate_ anything. It’s just always this big buildup, big hoopla, blah blah fuckity-blah, everybody gets all worked up trying to make everything all perfect for this one big day, and then some unexpected shit happens and there’s a change of plans.”  
   
“Change of plans?”  
   
“Yeah, change of plans. Like say you get terrorists instead of a turkey dinner, or instead of stockings by the fire, you get hijackers. Instead of fruitcake you get…divorced.”  
   
“Divorced? You got divorced on _Christmas_?” Because that would explain pretty much everything.  
   
“No.”  
   
Matt might never get used to just how much ‘you gotta be fuckin’ kidding me’ McClane could pack into a single syllable.  
   
“…But the fights we had every year sure as hell didn’t help.” John put one hand up across his eyes to squeeze at his temples, and leaned wearily against the wall with the other.  
   
“Look, kid,” John put down the hand that was covering his face and looked right at him with those penetrating eyes he had. “Holly and me had plans. A lot of plans, and not one of ‘em turned out the way we wanted. You just…gotta learn to roll with the punches. You can’t plan out your whole life, kid, shit just doesn’t work that way. Life just grabs you by the balls when you aren’t expecting it. And then-- ”  
   
“It sneaks up on you in the hallway at 3 am and surprise-molests you until you have a heart attack?”  
   
John was still leaning against the wall and Matt took advantage of his position to slide himself in under his arm the way he had that very first time he’d worked up the courage to try and put a move on him. It hadn’t been that long ago, Matt supposed, a few months maybe. It felt like a lifetime though. A lifetime of rehab and recipes and getting a freakin’ dog with somebody. Of sharing a bed with somebody. Sharing it with John McClane. Sometimes it still felt a little unreal.  
   
“Yeah, sometimes that happens too.”  
   
John wrapped his arms around Matt’s hips the way he had that first night. One corner of his mouth curved up in that crooked little half smile that always derailed Matt’s train of thought. So Matt kept talking before he ended up stranded at I Really Need to be Biting That station. End of the line.  
   
“Well I hate to tell you this, but I had kinda planned that out. Well not the heart attack part. But the molesting part? Yeah. Definitely premeditated.”  
   
Uh oh, he was already starting to correct himself. That meant this conversation was definitely headed off the rails. If he wasn’t careful, a shit-ton of babble without whole lot of sense to it was going to follow.  
   
“And then what happened to your little plan?” John murmured down at him. “Ran smack into the McClane curse.”  
   
Come on, did McClane really believe he was cursed? Actually Matt wasn’t sure he could argue with that. …Not with John’s fingers creeping up under the hem of his shirt and dancing over his skin like that, anyway.  
   
“Well, okay, yes that sucked. But we dealt. We rolled with the punches, just like you said. And I hate to take all the credit -- even though, come on, I _brought_ it that day -- but if it hadn’t have been for my brilliant plan, where would we be?”  
   
Oh yeah. Hyper-babble mode engaged. He couldn’t help it. John’s fingers were tracing tight little circles over his hips.  
   
“I’d be back in Camden,” he turbo-chatted. “If I could even find a place, and you’d be …God knows where, surfing on another plane wing? Swinging from another exploding building? In the hospital again? Because we both know you wouldn’t be just hanging around _here_. Which, by the way, happens to be right under some mistletoe…no. Wait. I had a point, I did, I had a…hmmm…”  
   
John’s hands slid around to palm the skin of his lower back. But no, Matt could do this, he could finish his thought. He totally had this.  
   
“The point is. No, plans don’t always go the way we…plan them. But if you don’t plan anything -- if you plan _nothing_. Well then, that’s what’ll happen.”  
   
“Very wise. You get that out of a fortune cookie?”  
   
One of John’s thumbs smoothed over the little groove and notch of his spine. Matt shivered a little at the icy-warm tingling that spread slowly out from the point of that contact, and he was pretty sure at this distance John could feel it. Busted.  
   
Yeah, there was no point just stubbornly pressing the argument, was there? He let John pull him a little closer and fit their mouths together. He soaked in the warmth and the familiar gun-oil and Old Spice smell of him, revelled in the solid, protective frame John’s body made around him.  
   
For now. Because this? Was so not over.  
 

 **  
~o~ **

   
   
Matt really was being persistent. He had already gone all sort of soft and pliant in John’s arms, but the kid could be kind of squirmy some times and this was one of them.  
   
Matt had managed to wriggle out of their kiss, sort of cock his head to the side, and pull back enough to doggedly repeat his questions about Lucy buying them a turkey, and how bad making a few little plans could seriously be. His fingers were still twisted in the fabric of John’s shirt, eyes slightly glassy and unfocused. Matt was just about as undone as John was, but the only trouble with distracting Matt this way, was that it left John vulnerable to attack, too.  
   
It wasn’t like he didn’t want Matt to understand this, but he didn’t have the slightest fucking clue how to explain.  
   
Matt was young. And John had done the math -- more times than he’d like to think about.  
   
“Listen,” he said, tugging gently at Matt’s earlobe to make sure he did. “It’s just the way shit works. Having plans eventually means disappointment.” And if John couldn’t deliver, how long would it be before Matt got fed up with it? “And disappointment means arguments. I mean sure, right now it’s all puppies and picket fences…”  
   
“Wait. You’re planning on building me a picket fence?” Matt interrupted.  
   
“You gonna pretend like you don’t want one?”  
   
“Not the point.” Matt gave a sly little smile and stroked his fingers over the place on John’s chest where he’d been crushing wrinkles into his shirt. “The point is…isn’t that a _plan_ in your head, Detective McClane?”

  
Matt raised his hand to tap at John’s temple and then slid it around the side of his head and down to rub rhythmically at the back of his neck.

   
John shouldn’t be smiling. This wasn’t really funny. He’d been down this road before, and Matthew hadn’t. Things never stayed this way. And if John had thought it was tough the first go-round...  
   
“Think about it kid, ten years from this right here, I’ll be a senior citizen. You’ll barely be forty.”  
   
Hell, by the time Matt reached the age John was at right now, John would be pushing 80.  
   
And that was the best case scenario.  
   
“And you’ll still be calling me ‘kid’, won’t you? Ten years. Wow McClane, who’s the compulsive planner now?”  
   
Ten years still seemed like ages to Matt. Boy, did he have an education coming.  
   
“I’m serious,” John pressed. “I’ve been there kid, I know what it’s like. I had my whole life planned out when I was your age -- a shit load of big ideas. And when they didn’t happen…” John trailed off.  
   
“But I’m _not_ you,” Matt said, when it was clear John didn’t have the words. “And I’m definitely not Holly.”

  
The kid couldn’t resist. He pressed his still-very-aroused crotch to John’s thigh, and they grinned at each other conspiratorially like a pair of teenagers.

   
“And, hi, math geek?” Matt continued, shaking his hair out of his face so John could look at him -- as if it was the first time or something. Jesus, the kid was cute. “I’ve run the numbers you’re talking about, John. I know they don’t add up to anything easy. But seriously, what’s ever easy with you? I mean look at this, I’m just trying to get a fucking turkey here, and you’re practically giving me the Miranda treatment.” 

“Remain silent? You?”  
   
“I mean it. I get where you’re coming from, yeah. It’s not like I have _everything_ planned out. But I do know what I want and the only way you get it is by making a plan and at least trying to follow through. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in ten years, I’m just trying to figure out what’ll go down at dinner in a couple of days. But I _can_ tell you that -- right now? When I think about ten years from today, or hell, make it twenty -- what I _don’t_ have are any plans to go anywhere you’re not going to be.”   
   
They didn’t talk like this very often, but whenever Matt said shit like that it made John’s chest go soft and his dick get hard.  
   
It wasn’t what most would probably think of as romantic, but they were in the very spot they’d had their first kiss, gently lit by the glow of the tiny lights on the Christmas tree trickling into the hall from the living room, and John didn’t think it was a mistake that this was the spot Matt had chosen for the mistletoe.  
   
John looked at Matt, who was still kneading his neck lightly and flicking his gaze searchingly over John’s face, like he was serious about learning to read it like a code. The dark of his eyes stood out like coals against the ash white of his skin in this light. It seemed like maybe he was done talking for a while. John spread his hands across Matthew’s back and leaned forward to pick up where they’d left off.  
   
Matt responded eagerly, rubbing against him with his body, his mouth, his hands. Those hands were everywhere. Matt had dispensed with half their clothing before John suggested, breathlessly, that they move the party to the bedroom.  
   
“Are you kidding me?” Matt grated, flattening his back against the wall and pulling John up against him. “I’ve been trying to get you to fuck me _right here_ since September.”  
   
John groaned, as those words went straight to his dick without asking his say-so. He attacked Matt’s mouth again with renewed intensity -- opening and pushing in, crushing his body against Matt’s like he could crawl inside of him and leave a piece of himself there the rest of their lives.  
   
“Lube. My bag,” Matt panted, nodding his head at his laptop bag hanging from the coat hooks next to them.  
   
“Jesus. You really have been trying to make this happen for months haven’t ya? You know you could have just said so.”  
   
“I just did. Look, do you want to talk about it or are you gonna grab my bag?”  
   
The kid was definitely done talking for a while.  
   
At first John thought it would be awkward but Matt had obviously been thinking about this for some time and had the mechanics worked out.  
   
He managed to lose the rest of their clothing and still keep his back to that wall. He hiked one leg up over John’s hip, and around his back, drawing him forward so the heat of their skin pressed together everywhere and their cocks slid enthusiastically over each other.  
   
He demanded John’s fingers so he could coat them liberally with the slick gel they’d retrieved from Matt’s bag. Then he guided John’s hand under his raised thigh, biting his lip and moaning happily as John’s fingers stroked questingly into his cleft.  
   
Matt got bossy like this quite a bit, and John didn’t mind in the least. It didn’t usually last long anyhow, before Matt’s vocabulary for giving commands dwindled into cursing and a very limited few words -- like _harder_ and _right there_ and, of course, John’s name.  
   
Sure enough, John had only gotten as far as two fingers working him gently open, before Matt was grinding down against John’s hand and using his teeth to worry a sensitive trail along the line of John’s jaw and down his neck.  
   
“Now,” Matt was saying repeatedly. He got a little more emphatic each time, until the third or fourth one was an actual growl through gritted teeth.  
   
John kissed him one last time and relented, pulling his fingers away slowly, so he could squeeze more of the slippery liquid from the little tube to coat himself properly. As impatient as Matt was being -- and as much as that got John’s motor revving -- if Matt had been wanting this as long as he said he did, John wanted to do it right.  
   
He went as slow as he could, with Matt wrapped around him and gasping words of encouragement until he was buried in him to the very root, and Matt was done with slow.  
   
With both arms holding himself up over John’s shoulders, he was using that leg behind John’s hips to show him how he wanted it, motion matching the words on his lips -- harder, faster, yes. Until, once again, his words tapered off into a litany of curses followed by the simple, repeated chant of his name. John knew his cue and pushed a hand between them to tug and squeeze like Matt liked.  
   
Matt was clenching around him, and coming with his teeth closed over the tendon running from John’s neck to his shoulder. And that was more than enough.  
   
John felt his rhythm go erratic, the heel of his fist hitting the wall above Matt’s head. Hips, stuttering and snapping forward while his spine made like it was melting and colored lights throbbed behind his eyelids.  
   
Matt sagged a little in his arms as their bodies uncoiled and came back to them. He brought both feet to the floor, and dropped his forehead to John’s chest, panting and spent.  
   
No, maybe it wasn’t what most would think of as romantic. And John could barely rasp the words out between sucking in ragged, raw breaths, but it was worth saying none the less:  
   
“Fuck but I love you, kid.”  
   
It wasn’t something they said too often, John realized, when Matt looked up at him with surprise in his eyes.  
   
“Love you too,” Matt told him, pushing his mouth against John’s again in a long, firm press of lips that was only partly a kiss, but mostly several kinds of promise. “You _really_ have no idea.”  
   
Matt stroked his hand lovingly over the back of John’s head a few times before he spoke again.  
   
“Okay. Now let go of me and -- hey where did your pants end up? We need to make a shopping list for Lucy before you pass out in bed. We _are_ making a list for a turkey dinner, right?”  
   
Christ, John was still half hard and nestled comfortably inside of him. So much for romance. The kid was moving on from blackmail and bribery, right up to extortion.   
 

 **  
~o~ **

 

When Christmas Day first arrived it looked like none of Matt’s plans were going to work out at all. Lucy had of course suffered a change to her plans and was now running several hours late, and Matt was starting to panic about dinner being pushed back.  
   
“So now she’s not bringing the jerkoff?” John had asked, hoping he didn’t sound too pleased.  
   
“I believe he prefers ‘Jim’,” Matt had snarked, ever the wise guy, even when he was busy making frenzied re-calculations of how many pounds of turkey they needed, and the corresponding cooking time. Then again, doing math always tended to make Matt cocky. “It would have been weird anyway, why anyone would invite their ex to Christmas dinner is way beyond my processing capacity. Even if he didn’t have anywhere else to go until today.”  
   
“Ex?"

"Yeah, something about him spying on her? Creeping her iPhone or something. She was kind of sketchy on the details."

"Since when? Last time I asked he wasn’t even her boyfriend.”  
   
“I don’t know, like a month ago or something. A long time.”  
   
Right. Ages.  
   
“My kids never tell me a goddamn thing,” John muttered, trying to feel upset about it.  
   
If that weren’t enough, sometime around noon, Bullitt managed to squeeze in enough unchaperoned quality time with Matt’s popcorn strings to chew a bald patch into the Christmas tree that was at least two feet across. And spruce-spiked popcorn didn’t seem to agree with the mutt’s digestion. It took four towels and half the bottle of disinfectant before Matt calmed down enough to go back into the kitchen and resume taking an obsessive inventory of the pantry items, and frantically texting Lucy last minute additions to her shopping list.  
   
John was dumping the dirty towels in the wash when he heard activity on the first floor, and made his way up to investigate. Matt was in the kitchen, sitting in his favourite spot on the counter. He had a jar of peanut butter in his left hand, and was sucking on the fingers of the right like a chimp on an ant hill.  
   
John was about to tell him not to stick his fingers back in that jar, when the source of the activity he’d been hearing appeared. Lucy came in from the hall, laden with groceries, and with Bullitt dancing in after her, his entire back end gyrating like it had a mind of its own.  
   
Talk about the tail wagging the dog.  
   
Bullitt loved Lucy. He obeyed John with unerring alacrity and was becoming a devoted and loyal partner in the field. He ran a constant protective circle around Matt, even when they were at home, and curled faithfully on the floor at his feet whenever he and John stretched out together on the couch. But Bullitt _loved_ Lucy.   
   
John suspected it was partly because of the rawhide she could generally be counted on to produce from her purse on every visit. Today was no exception, he saw, when Lucy deposited her burden unceremoniously on the floor and reached into her bag. But Bullitt was too overcome with canine ecstasy to take the gift. He rolled on his back, exposing his belly for Lucy to scratch.  
   
“Mmm!” Not to be outdone for attention, Matt made an urgent sound when he saw Lucy, and flapped the hand he’d just licked clean. Apparently even having it glued shut with peanut butter couldn’t keep the kid’s mouth quiet. John only knew one thing that could accomplish that.  
   
“You’re here! Thank all the gods of Azeroth,” Matt said. Whatever that meant. “I am _starving_. I don’t think my blood sugar has been this low since Joey shocked the world by choosing Pacey.”  
   
“Nothing shocking about it, the woman had taste.”  
   
“If only we could say the same for Katie,” Matt said, making about as much sense as the pair of them ever did to John.  
   
“Bazinga,” said Lucy, drily.  
   
Bullitt rolled back onto his feet, to start nosing curiously through the grocery bags.  
   
“Off,” John commanded, and the dog pulled his dark muzzle out of the nearest bag and sat at alert; eyes on John, tongue out. “Relax,” He amended, and Bullitt picked up Lucy’s desiccated pig’s ear in his jaws and trotted happily off to his favourite chewing spot in the living room.  
   
Matt held out the peanut butter jar, and Lucy stuck two fingers in and scooped. After petting the dog.  
   
John swore sometimes this generation would never grow up. As if in confirmation, Matt swung his feet restlessly, thumping his heels against John’s cupboard doors and making them shudder and bang. John cut his gaze sharply over at Matt, who stilled, mouth silently forming the word “sorry”. He wrinkled his nose up in contrition, and damn him, John felt his diligently-perfected hard stare melt and go to mush.  
   
“Turkey,“ Lucy was saying around a mouthful of peanut butter, pointing at one of the grocery bags she’d dropped on the floor. She pointed out all the bags in turn, giving an inventory of the contents. “Potatoes, onions, green beans – _ugh_ , sweet potatoes, ‘bread for stuffing’ – whatever that is, and sausage for stuffing – however that works.”  
   
“Cranberry sauce?” Matt asked.  
   
“Check,” Lucy confirmed. “Not that I know what to do with any of it. Oh, and here,” she said, placing a last bag on the counter beside Matt. “Pie.”  
   
Matt poked his nose in the bag eagerly, and Lucy slapped his thigh. “Off!” she quipped.  
   
“Ow!” Matt exclaimed, gritting his teeth dramatically.  
   
Lucy looked horrified, clearly remembering Matt’s old injury. She’d probably had time to develop a healthy bit of survivor’s guilt around that one by now. And Matt damn well knew it.  
   
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry Farrell, I forgot!”  
   
“Don’t fall for it, sweetie, it only hurts him when it rains, now,” John said, ignoring Matt’s frustrated eye-roll and reaching out to draw her into a hug. “Merry Christmas, honey.”  
   
“Merry Christmas Dad,” Lucy said, returning the embrace. Then she pulled free and punched Matt in the arm.  
   
“Merry Christmas, dick hole,” Lucy said.  
   
“Language!” said John.  
   
“Ow, _shit_ ,” said Matt. That one did look like it hurt.  
   
“Thanks for that, McClane,” he said, before turning to Lucy. “Yeah, Gennaro. Language.”  
   
Then he mouthed a word that John was pretty sure was ‘bitch.’  
   
Lucy smiled sweetly and took away the bag with the pie in it. Matt slumped on the counter in defeat.  
   
“There’s more out in the car,” Lucy said, putting the pie into the fridge. “And your gift is out there, John. Don’t move.” And Lucy stepped over the piles of grocery bags out into the hall.  
   
“Oh...Oh, your gift!” Matt spluttered. His eyes were big. Something was going on. “I’m gonna...I better grab Bullitt,” he said, sliding off the counter gingerly to avoid crushing any of the grocery bags. He dragged one finger through the peanut butter -- a peace offering for interrupting the pig’s ear session no doubt -- then he thrust the jar into John’s hands and said, “Stay.”  
   
Smartass.  
   
John started unpacking the chaos in his kitchen. He heard Matt whistling and calling for Bullitt, but there was something else. Voices. Male voices. In his hallway. And it was distracting because one of them sounded an awful lot like...  
   
“...Can just bring that right through to the kitchen,” Lucy was saying to two college-aged boys knocking the New York City slush from their boots. One was tall and blond, the other broad and dark, his hair cropped short to keep the curl out of it.  
   
“These ones are for John,” said the dark-haired boy, holding up a cardboard box. And it was a good thing Matt couldn’t hear John’s heart from across the hall, where he was standing with a restraining hand tightly wrapped around Bullitt’s collar. Because if he could feel the way it tripped and faltered and _stopped_ for a beat, Matt would have a shit fit.  
   
“I’ve asked you repeatedly,” John said, and the young man who had just appeared unexpectedly in his doorway on Christmas Day met his gaze with a startled expression in his familiar eyes.  “To call me ‘Dad’.”   
 

 **  
~o~ **

John kept coming in to the kitchen to offer his help, and on a normal day Matt would have been grateful, but right now it was the last fucking thing he needed.  
   
He was bouncing between the stove and the sink with a baster in one hand and a potato peeler in the other.  
   
“Too many cooks make a...bad scene in the kitchen,” Matt answered. He could never remember how that saying went. Oh God, he’d been hanging around John too long and was turning into an old man before his time. “You’re supposed to be out in the living room, enjoying your daughter’s gift.”  
   
The reunion between John and Jack hadn’t been what Matt was expecting. It wasn’t like he expected them to rush into each other’s arms Romeo and Juliet style, or for John to sweep him up and start smothering Jack with kisses and questions like a Jewish mother. In fact, he’d expected it to be awkward.  
   
And it was. But not how Matt had thought. Jack had greeted his father with a jovial and placating “Merry Christmas, Dad” and a warm hug, and then after that, with the exception of a quick introduction to his travelling companion, Billy, he hadn’t said much of anything at all. He tended to stand around and watch everything John did like he was studying him for school.  
   
“You mean my freaky, staring son and his loud Aussie friend?”  
   
Jack had met Billy at the University where they were both studying Zoology. Watching John and Billy interact was a bit like watching Abbott and Costello.  
   
Billy cracked jokes and told animated stories and generally tried way too hard, while John made classic John faces and nodded a lot. Matt actually had a suspicion that between Billy’s heavy -- and totally sexy by the way -- Australian accent, his liberal use of unfamiliar slang, and a tendency to quote pop culture references even more than Matt did, that John actually didn’t understand half of what Billy said.  
   
“Well, technically just your freaky son,” Matt answered him. “He was the surprise for you. Billy was a surprise for _me_. But it’s all good.” Matt gestured with the utensils in his hands at the carefully calculated but probably still adequate amount food he was working on. “It’s not officially Christmas until you have to water down the gravy. Right?”  
   
Matt gave a little laugh and managed to make it sound only slightly manic. John patted him on the shoulder sympathetically before he went back out to the living room looking reluctant.  
 

 **  
~o~ **

   
It turned out Jack wasn’t the only one to bring a surprise guest into Matt’s dinner plans.  
   
“Humbugs,” Old Man Pulaski announced, thrusting a box of candy into John’s chest. He coughed and unwound a long hand-knitted scarf that was wrapped around his neck several times, even though he’d only come from as far as next door.  
   
“Try to ignore the irony.” There was a grinning youth standing behind Pulaski. He reached around the old man’s shoulder to clasp John’s hand in a solid, meaty grip.  
   
“My wise-ass grandson, Rudy,” Pulaski introduced him, laying his scarf over John’s arm and working on his coat buttons like he was getting ready to hand him that too.  
   
John took the moment to look Rudy over. This kid ate his Wheaties, John thought, taking in the tall frame, and broad, rounded shoulders -- a running back’s build. He had short-cropped, sandy hair and a wide, white, cornfed grin. John was surrounded by college kids.  
   
He didn’t have much time to feel old though, because Pulaski was introducing him to Rudy with his usual degree of tact.  
   
“Detective McClane’s a faggot, bet you’d never guess. Where’s that hippie-dippy boy of yours, McClane? Here he his!” Like the words had conjured him up, Matt came out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “This here’s McClane’s piece of ass.”  
   
Matt didn’t miss a beat.  
   
“It’s actually Matthew Daniel Jacob Calrissian McClane’s-piece-of-ass Farrell, the third. But ‘Matt’ is shorter.”  
   
“He’s a wise-ass too,” Pulaski grunted. And sure enough he shoved his coat at John with as much ceremony as he’d given the gift-wrapped box of humbugs.  
   
“Nice to meet you, Matt,” Rudy shook hands again and Matt managed to look only slightly surprised at the strength of that grip. “I’d apologize for my grandfather, but I think he actually enjoys being an offensive old jackass.”  
   
“You want to watch out for this one, Rudy,” Pulaski was saying, as John took Rudy’s oversized jacket. “He looks like a pansy but he’s feisty. Helped McClane defend the country from those thieving commie hacker bastards last year. Took a bullet. I’d get the kid to show you, but I don’t want him getting any ideas, hiking those hippie-trousers up for my boy here. _Rudy likes pussy_.” This last bit was for Matt’s benefit.  
   
“Don’t we all,” Matt muttered.  
   
Old Man Pulaski hooted with laughter, and this time Matt did jump a little at what looked like a surprisingly firm thump on the back.  
   
“What I tell ya Rudy? McClane’s got his hands full with this one, that’s sure as shit. Oh, well would you look at this,” Pulaski was suddenly standing up straight and adjusting his collar. “We’re in the presence of a lady.”  
   
John looked over his shoulder, and sure enough there was Lucy, leaning on the frame of the entryway.  
   
“Might be an Angel, granddad,” grinned Rudy. This kid never seemed to stop smiling. Suddenly John found it kinda suspicious. “It is Christmas after all.”  
   
John would have expected his daughter to make a snappy put-down or roll her eyes, but she just raised an eyebrow and looked Rudy over with an amused little smile. Now he was really starting to feel suspicious.  
   
“Lucy McClane,” she introduced herself, holding a hand out to the old man first. She looked skeptical enough when he took it and pressed it to his wizened lips, that Rudy didn’t try anything similar when she turned to him next. One point for the new kid, John thought, grudgingly. 

 **  
~o~ **

When John came into the kitchen to get drinks for their newest guests, Matt was boiling a pot of water, stirring the gravy, and giving Jack and Billy instructions on where to find all the folding chairs stashed in various places in the basement.  
   
“Looks like we’ll need a couple more now,” John said, squeezing Matt’s shoulder comfortingly as he made his way past him to the fridge. “How’s that gravy lookin’, Chef Farrell? A little more water in order?”  
   
“My god, man!” Matt exclaimed in his best Scottish brogue -- which was pretty bad. “I've watered her down as far as she'll go! I canna water no more!”   
   
“Old-school Simpsons, too right,” drawled Billy, reaching one of his impressively long arms over the corner of the counter for a high five.  
   
As per usual, nothing from John.  
   
“Dad’s a tough audience, huh Matt?” Jack asked, with a tone of sympathy.  
   
“I swear I’m about oh-for-twelve with the quotes today alone. Your dad’s not much for the pop culture, but I keep trying. I’m invested in his education.”  
   
“Strewth, that right, sir?” Billy twanged. “You dunnow the Simpsons? Not even Star Trek? Wow.”  
   
“See what I have to deal with?” Matt asked, and it was easy enough to ignore the McClane eye-daggers headed his way and watch while Jack chuckled knowingly and Billy grinned at him.  
   
“Dad?” Lucy had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen holding the phone. “It’s Mom. For you.” She was looking kind of meaningfully at them, like she thought the call might require privacy.  
   
There were loud-mouthed Pulaskis in the living room, and the Australian science contingent conducting the John McClane observation experiment were still hanging out in the kitchen.  
   
“It’s probably pretty quiet in my office,” Matt suggested, and started chopping the ends off three pounds of green beans. John ruffled his hair gratefully and went.  
 

 **  
~o~ **

   
Holly’s voice on the phone sounded tentative and anxious. It wasn’t like her.  
   
John asked after her mother, as soon as they’d greeted each other.  
   
“Oh she’s fine,” Holly reassured him. “Much better than last year.”  
   
Huh. No emergency, no last minute change of plans.  
   
“Sounds like you’re Christmas Central,” Holly observed. “How many people are you entertaining over there?”  
   
“Jack’s here,” John said, to save her the trouble of asking. “With his friend Billy.”  
   
“Oh good,” Holly sounded relieved. “I didn’t want to say anything and spoil the surprise if he hadn’t arrived yet. And for a while there I wasn’t sure he was going through with it. He’s been very nervous about reconnecting with you, John, but he wants to try. So, try and go easy on him?”  
   
“Easy, huh? You think I should let him out of this headlock and take the cuffs off him then?”  
   
“Well,” Holly said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “You’re in a better mood on Christmas than I’ve seen you in… oh heck, possibly ever. I guess all of us have a lot to thank Matt for, this Christmas.”  
   
“All of us?”  
   
“Sure. You didn’t think the only son of the two most stubborn parents in the country would show up unexpected on Christmas without at least one express invitation, did you?” Holly laughed. “I think you might have finally found your match there, John. He’s quite the little schemer. And once he gets an idea in his head -- well let’s just say he can be very _persistent_.”  
   
No shit. So ‘Lucy’s gift’ probably had more to do with Matthew than it did with Luce. John couldn’t help but smile as he thought of the number of secretive and obsessive phone calls his family had probably been getting from Matt this season.  
   
“Yeah?” John said, tone conciliatory. “I guess he just takes his holidays pretty seriously.”

  
“Well you wish him a happy one for me.”

   
“Will do.”  
   
There was a little pause in the conversation, and John figured it was time to bite that particular bullet and ask.  
   
“So how’s things going with you and that Mark guy?”  
   
“Mark?” There was an unsure second of silence from Holly, and then John could hear that hesitant note entering her voice again. “John…Mark wasn’t here with _me_ on Christmas last year. He was here with Jack.”  
   
It shouldn’t have hit him like an anvil in a Warner Bros. skit. It explained so much that John should have seen it coming ages ago. Why Jack had never talked about girls at school. Why he got so defensive whenever John asked about it.

It explained _Billy_. And the freaky staring like today was some kind of test.  
   
“It turned out not to be serious, just like I said,” Holly was saying. “We thought you knew all of this. It’s why Jack’s been so nervous to call you until now.”  
   
Holly didn’t say ‘until Matt’, but John got it anyway, now.  
   
“John? You alright?”  
   
He realized he’d been sitting there in silence.  
   
“Yeah yeah, I’m here. I’m fine.”  
   
“Alright,” Holly said slowly before changing the subject. “...And you get to meet Billy. Now I think _that_ might be serious. Well, you should be honoured, John, we haven’t had the pleasure, yet.”  
   
“We?” John wasn’t preoccupied enough to miss that unexplained little pronoun.  
   
“Yes,” Holly said, sounding cautious yet again. “Speaking of serious…I should tell you about Craig.”  
   
And she did. Craig was an Architect from Sacramento Holly had met when he did some work for her company. It had only been a few months and it was still a long distance thing, but he was self employed and traveled for his job so they were able to fit in enough visits to make it work, so far. They were even talking about him moving closer in the new year if things kept going so well.  
   
“That’s great, Holly.”  
   
“Great. Really?”   
   
Really. It had been years. It was way past time. And Holly deserved to be happy as much as John did. Maybe more, who the hell knew.  
   
“Yeah,” he said, simply. “I trust ya. If anyone knows you got taste, it’s me. I know you only go for the real stand-up guys.”  
   
Holly laughed again. John had always loved that sound. Some things never changed.  
   
“Hey, tell him from me he’s a lucky guy, alright?”  
   
“Alright,” she agreed, and John could hear the smile he knew so well all the way from California. She finally sounded like herself.  
   
They exchanged their Christmas wishes and ended the call, and John was left alone with his thoughts and the poster Matt had put up in here, of that rock star with the dirty-looking blond hair and the eye liner who shot his brains out back in the 90’s.  
   
Jesus H. Christ. It was hard enough thinking about Lucy having a boyfriend. But his youngest...and his only son...  
   
John didn’t even _know_ how to feel about this. He was a little pissed off Jack had thought John couldn’t deal with hearing it straight from him.  
   
Then he tried to think about the head space he’d been inhabiting a year ago and how he would have felt back then. And then he was ashamed, because Jack might not have been as wrong about it as John thought. Tolerance and not giving a shit what two consenting adults got up to in a bedroom was one thing. John maybe wouldn’t like to admit it, but the shitty truth was it was a whole different ballgame when it came down to your own kid.  
   
So next came the guilt and feeling like a hypocrite, but then he thought about the last year of his life and how much things had changed. The things he’d learned about living your life and sharing it with somebody else.  
   
He thought about the way they looked at each other and how Jack and the tall Aussie laughed together at Matt’s jokes in the kitchen. John’s son was _happy_. And however it had happened, however awkward the start, he was choosing to let John in on it.  
   
He thought about how much he truly did have to thank Matt for.  
 

 **  
~o~ **

   
When John made his way back to the living room, everybody was already seated around the table, chatting amiably and looking eagerly at the platters of food Matt had laid out.  
   
John stood behind the empty chair left waiting for him next to Matthew. He looked around at all of them, and thought about how each of them had brought something special to the table today. Lucy and Jack, who truly had made his life whole again today, Billy who made that possible because he so obviously did the same for Jack, and the Pulaskis whose brash friendship had settled over all of these new, and somewhat awkward, pieces of the perfect holiday and made them finally fit together in the most comfortable way. And of course, Matt. Who had made all of this -- the tree, the turkey, the seven people now crowded around their little kitchen table made for four -- happen.  
   
John stood behind that chair and proceeded to thank them each for it. Jesus, John realized, he’d just made a Christmas dinner _speech_. It was official. John had turned into his old man. And by the looks he was getting as he finally sat down, everybody around the table was as surprised about it as he was.  
   
Leave it to Matt not to let any silence, no matter how awkward, last long. “And now, the airing of grievances,” he murmured.  
   
For some reason, the table exploded into laughter and there was a loud chorus of “I got a lot of problems with you people!!”  
   
Was this the usual reaction Matt got with his constant quoting of obscure tv and movies? Whatever else might have been running through his gene pool, John never suspected his family had been chock full of _geeks_.  
   
“McClane, come on,” Matt was saying, as he started passing the platter of turkey around the table. “I thought even you would get that one. Seinfeld? Festivus for the rest of us? No? Seriously nothing?”  
   
John looked around and saw Lucy, Jack and Billy smirking at him, eyes glittering with laughter. Even old man Pulaski was giving a dried-up old chuckle. There was only one other person who didn’t seem to be in on the joke. Rudy, who was seated on the other side of John, met his eye and shrugged like he thought the pack of them were as crazy as John did.  
   
Chalk up another point for the new kid, John thought. Which actually didn’t make John feel the least bit better about it when a minute or so later he caught Matt and Lucy darting meaningful looks between each other and the big burly meathead, and quite obviously kicking each other under the table.    
   
Lucy and the boy next door? Well, shit. It was starting to seem like, as with everything else, the McClane clan didn’t half-ass it when it came to clichés. At least the Meathead would be an improvement over the Jerkoff.  
   
John must have been scowling again because a warm hand landed on his knee under the table.  
   
“Everything cool?” Matt was asking him.  
   
John looked around the table again. At Jack and Billy exchanging amused grins while Mr. Pulaski told them in vivid detail all about how Matt and Bullitt had saved his life last month. At Lucy, tugging coyly on her earring and admitting to an enthralled-looking Rudy that, yeah, it _was_ pretty awesome having a national hero for a dad.  
   
He looked at Matt, who, despite all the changes in plans, was not only still here with John but was still wearing that bright smile that always tripped him up so bad. Matt, who hadn’t gotten trapped on a doomed aircraft or taken hostage or even fatally injured himself making dinner. Even if the gravy was a little on the watery side.  
   
Everything _was_ cool, John realized. But there was still one last thing.  
   
John got up from the table and crossed the room to where the tree was standing with its puppy-inflicted bald spot turned strategically into the corner. He stepped over Bullitt, lying innocently under its branches and gnawing happily on his pig’s ear, and flipped on the god damn twinkle lights they’d forgotten yet again.  
   
Matt was still watching him with questions etched all over his features as he made his way back to the table.  
   
“Cool,” John answered at last, and the unsure lines of Matt’s expression relaxed back into that smile John was waiting to see.  He leaned over to press a kiss to the top of Matt’s head before he settled himself back into his chair. “Now, it’s _officially_ Christmas.”  
   
Maybe making plans wasn’t always such a bad idea. John looked over at the fireplace where Matt had put up little stockings bearing the names _McClane, Kid,_ and _Bullitt_. He thought about how, since Matt hated eggnog, they really ought to try mulled wine instead sometime, and he started making some plans of his own for New Years. And if they changed a little between now and then, well, they could roll with the punches.  
   
They were experts at it by now.  
   
   
 _Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer._  
 _Cheer to all far and near._  
 _Christmas Day is in our grasp,_  
 _So long as we have hands to clasp._

 

 THE END   

 

 _  
_________________________

'Snick, December 2010


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